


The History of Sisters

by LaLicorneRose



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Exploration, F/F, Family History, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian Character, No Incest, Pseudo-Incest, Rescue, Sisters, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2020-11-01 15:23:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 16,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20817377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaLicorneRose/pseuds/LaLicorneRose
Summary: Vignettes of Hilda and Zelda through the years.There's no order or rhyme or reason.Accepting suggestions for scenes, if you'd like to play along.





	1. Le Fleuriste

**Le Fleuriste**

Hilda had returned home with the third bouquet of the week. Roses this time, fine, delicate, red, hard to acquire this time of the year.

Zelda, smoking one of her dreadful rolled cigarettes from one of her suitors, stirred from her settee, moved to look at the deep red petals while Hilda leaned up to press her lips to Zelda’s - because she had missed her in the short amount of time that she had been away that morning. And Zelda had returned home so dreadfully late the previous night so that they hadn’t a moment to themselves.

But Zelda offered her cheek to Hilda’s lips, eyes unable to turn from the roses. She reached out, grabbed one impulsively by the petals and let the satin leaves crush in her hand.

Hilda watched, horrified. “Wh-what are you...”

“Don’t you think, dear Sister, that we have enough flowers? I’m beginning to feel that perhaps we might be in mourning.”

Hilda’s smile faded, a worried look wrinkled her brow.

And then Zelda’s finger pricked on a thorn and she hissed, dropping the flower, crushed red petals falling from her hand like blood.


	2. The Life of a Courtesan’s Assistant

**The Life of a Courtesan’s Assistant**

Her hand falls over her sister’s vanity.

There’s the powder she’d dusted her face with right before leaving, the expensive perfume - the seductive fragrance of which still lingered in the air - she’d sprayed between her breasts while staring at Hilda in the mirror, the bright red she’d colored her lips and cheeks with, making her look less pale than she was.

It was all a mask. It wasn’t real, Hilda reminded herself of this for she knew her sister in every state. Undone after a sweaty night together, hair wild, red eyelashes fluttering, making her face look barren. Awake in the early morning sitting across from Hilda in a robe with a cup of coffee poised in her hand, looking at her. Upset about something, fighting back tears, her cheeks red with anger.

Hilda knew her every face. Loved all of them.

This Zelda, though, who had just left the apartment - and what an apartment it was with gilded ceilings and intricate trimmings! - was not _her_Zelda. This was another creature entirely.

Hilda had watched Zelda put herself together, watched as she’d pinned her hair up one pin at a time. And Hilda was glad for the caging of those locks for she couldn’t fathom another running his fingers through those silky strands that were hers...

She’d spent the previous night claiming Zelda for herself.

“Mine.” She’d whispered against her neck, her clavicle, her nipple, the warmth between her legs. And Zelda had given of herself spectacularly, openly, understandingly.

And then Zelda had held her through the night.

Though before she had departed, Zelda had been different. Colder. Tighter. She barely acknowledged Hilda.

Hilda didn’t like the thought of her with the Baron from Moscow. He had been very handsome, very cunning. She’d watched him, from a hidden spot behind a curtain, kiss Zelda’s hand enduringly. Smiling.

It was only a show.

Zelda was hers.

She picked up Zelda’s robe from where she’d let it fall behind the changing curtain. She lifted it to her nose. She smelled Zelda.

She hugged the robe to her chest, curled herself into a ball on her bed. She stared at the clock on the nightstand. Watched as the second hand marked the time.

It had only been ten minutes and fourteen seconds and it felt like a lifetime.


	3. The First

**The First**

It’s a cold summer night.

Zelda can’t sleep.

She’s listening.

The walls are deafeningly silent around her.

Hilda’s quiet, unlike Agatha who calls out mercilessly loud. Knowing full well that only a door separates Zelda’s room from Frederick’s.

Zelda’s waiting. She thinks she hears the rustling of sheets. A child coughs somewhere down the hall.

She turns in the bed, presses her ear to the pillow and waits. Her body is fully alert, intuitively tense.

There’s a grunt from the room next door, whispers, a door opening and closing, shuffling and then silence.

She waits longer.

She’d promised. She’d promised always.

The door opens slowly.

Zelda springs up in the bed, finding the trembling woman standing uncertainly in the frame of the door. She’s still so unsure of this. Zelda knows that it’s hard for her to trust anything.

She’s standing there, her long blonde hair hiding her face. But Zelda can see her wide, frightened eyes.

Zelda jumps from the bed, closes the door that separates her from Frederick. He’s passed out. Asleep. She can hear his snores.

She stands before Hilda, presses a lock of hair behind her ear. She asks without words.

Hilda nods, bows her head in shame. And Zelda can only wrap her up in her arms, because she hates to see her defiled like this.

Hilda is still uncertain. Doesn’t know what to do with her hands.

Zelda clasps her fingers, leads her to the bed and lays her down. She climbs in on the other side. Hilda is facing her. Zelda pulls the sheets over them, turns to face Hilda in turn, moves closer to her, to put her hand on her waist. Just enough so that she knew she was there, but not too much.

They stare at one another. 

Hilda’s hand moves up, traces along Zelda’s cheek, watches the motion with her eyes. Her body inches closer to Zelda’s. The warmth of Hilda’s body is welcome.

They find themselves close, impossibly close. Zelda’s hand cups a little tighter, without thought.

Hilda shifts, her eyes flash to Zelda’s lips. Zelda can’t imagine she witnesses this correctly, so she reaches out to smooth Hilda’s hair from her cheek and Hilda leans forward just so and their lips brush.

Zelda falls back, looks at Hilda wide-eyed. “You needn’t...”

“But...” Hilda whispers, her voice shaky. “I want...”

“Oh.” Zelda’s heart skips a beat and her grasp tightens again. It’s devilishly erotic to take from such willing lips.

They kiss until the sun rises - the cold night leaving them hot and sweaty and disheveled.


	4. Watch Out for Their Teeth

**Watch Out for Their Teeth**

She looked a bit like a stray dog found on the side of the road.

There was nothing confident about her, nothing strikingly handsome. She was only a shy young thing. Laughable really that Frederick should take to so young a girl. She was no more than sixteen. At most.

Zelda sat, straight-backed, against the chair.

She could feel Agatha, pregnant again, seething beside her. It was a slap in the face to her. A joke that she couldn’t produce a male heir.

And Zelda should feel guilty that she was incapable of producing anything - other than rage and anger and hatred and self-loathing and furtive attempts to drown herself in the river that ran at the edge of their property. Her father had left her here. With this man. With this life. When she should have been studying the craft, the church at his side.

He’d known her magic, he’s encouraged her. Up to a point.

And then he’d married her to Frederick Dunkirk. His top boy. As if that were “good enough.”

Zelda looked at this child, standing loosely at Frederick’s side. Appraised her coldly. It was no longer a slap in the face to her as it was to Agatha.

“Zelda, Agatha. This is to be your new sister-wife. Hildegard. She has come to me through your father, Zelda.” Frederick holds her forward like she’s some kind of prize. “I expect you to make her feel at home. Please, Zelda, she has had a long journey. Take her to the room that you have prepared for her.”

And Zelda could feel Agatha’s little blonde-headed angelic children peering out from the doorway. She could almost feel their teeth, waiting to sink into this new flesh and it made her start, stand.

“Come with me.” She said tersely. This was only a minor inconvenience. She did _not_have to make her feel at home just as she had not made Agatha feel welcome. The animosity radiates between them.

She hears Agatha run to Frederick once she’s led Hildegard from the receiving room, she hears her pathetically crying. She wanted to murder her.

They walked quietly down the halls. The girls were watching them. The girls make Zelda uneasy.

She opened the door at the end of the hallway and stepped inside. “Get the heavens out of here, Constantine.” Zelda had sensed the child.

She appeared like an apparition and then disappeared, leaving Zelda and the new frightened looking child alone. Zelda turned to her, looked at her loose blonde curls, the loose-fitting white, virgin dress she was wearing. She noticed that she was shaking.

“They will bite, but never too roughly and you can always smack them away. They’re little demon children.” Zelda said as she took Hildegard’s bag from her trembling hand and sat it atop the table.

She may be the first wife, but she was not the baby-sitter. She left Hildegard in her new room, hugging her arms about herself.


	5. Escape to Morocco

**Escape to Morocco**

They’re in Morocco.

Zelda wanted a change. The witch hunters had gotten too close for comfort this time. So, they’re in Morocco. And it’s colorful. All blues and whites and markets the colors of the rainbow. And all the smells and all the sounds. There are people everywhere. They are lost in a sea of mortals.

And Hilda is the one who goes to fetch the fresh fruit at the market in the morning. She delights in the funny way people talk. She tosses a few grapes to the stray children as she passes, her heart always heavy, always wanting to do more for them.

She’s buying a loaf of bread and some spices for their meal that evening when she realizes her coin purse is missing. Her cheeks warm. She knew there was the risk of this.

But she had already determined exactly what to do in this situation. She begins singing the enchantment, her eyes scanning the crowd as everything slowed to a blur around her.

She’s singing and singing and then she sees him.

He’s a slight little thing, no older than four or five. His skin is tanned, warm, and he has curious eyes. He feels her magic pulling at him, meets her gaze.

They move to meet one another in the middle of the busy market and he slowly hands her the coin purse.

“My, my. Why must you steal my little lamb?” She scolds kindly. His big eyes shine up at her. He’s tiny, spindly, needs nourishment. “Come here, love.” She holds out her hand to him and there’s a shock, a recognition in this touch.

She buys him a slice of bread and some cheese and he follows her through the rest of her shopping. He follows her down the streets, she looks him over. She sees the mark on his arm and knows that he is special.

Zelda is smoking a cigarette on the patio beneath a canopy. She hates the sun but she loves fresh air. Her body is scarcely covered and if she’d been alone Hilda might have crawled on her lap and rekindled what they’d done earlier that morning.

But now there’s the boy. Standing at her side.

“Z-Zelda.” She’s nervous. She never knows how Zelda will take things.

“Darling, you’re back. Did you get my cig- oh.” She’s turned. She sees the boy. “Who is this?” She taps off her ashes and stands elegantly to take in the young child.

“I found him in the market. H-he stole my coin purse.”

“What did I tell you about collecting strays?” Zelda hisses, rubs her forehead.

“But Zeld...”

“No, no. You give him some food, mend his clothes and send him on his way. I will not have a common street rat under this roof.” Zelda barks.

The boy hides behind Hilda’s colorful dress.

“Zelda, he’s marked. He’s...he’s a warlock.” Hilda’s voice is breathy and shy.

“He’s what?” Zelda comes forward, grabs the boy by the arm and exams it. She sees what Hilda had. “Who do you belong to?”

The boy shrugged.

“It is not safe for...”

Zelda is pacing. “I know, I know sister. But he...well, he cannot steal. He will not touch my things. I will _not_care for him.”

Hilda’s eyes are widening as she realizes what Zelda is allowing. Zelda’s still listening off her rules and regulations but Hilda turns to the boy and looks down at him. She smiles and he gives her a little half smile.

* * *

Zelda named him Ambrose - in honor of the Catholic saint whom few had known studied Pagan scripture. Who had married the two religions. It was a sort of joke and yet it wasn’t.

Hilda watched as Zelda laid beside the drowsy boy, reading from the Unholy Bible. It was the story of how Stolis had come to Lilith.

Ambrose loved Stolis.

He loved his Auntie Zee.

He shifted, put his arms around her, resting his cheek atop her chest and she indulged him. Hilda watched Zelda kiss his forehead.

A tear catching in her eye.


	6. Lost in the Woods

**Lost in the Woods**

Hilda doesn’t know she likes it so much until she realizes she does.

They’re alone in the forest of Germany in the little cottage they’d found and fixed up. Near enough to the town that Hilda can walk in to barter for items they need. She keeps a keen garden, pickles for the winter, sends Zelda out to hunt for rabbits and other edible animals since Zelda is handy with weapons.

She likes to bring things to their demise. So that is her job.

She comes in as dusk settles around them, cloaking the day in darkness.

Zelda is sharpening a knife, smoking a pipe, her legs in pants she’d worn to hunt through the woods that day. There’s a splatter of blood on her cheek and Hilda finds herself aroused by the vision.

She wipes her hands on her dirt stained dress, Zelda looks up. She’s smoking like a chimney recently. They’re too stagnant. Hilda can tell she’s getting restless.

“Take off your dress.” Zelda’s voice is low. She drags the knife across the cutting stone, her eyes on Hilda.

She’s turned very butch out in the woods. Though her gorgeous red locks rest over her shirt collar, tumble out messily.

Hilda does as she’s told. She unbuttons one button after another because she likes when Zelda asks for what she wants. It’s easier than not knowing.

“Undergarments.” Zelda snips, taking the pipe from her mouth and tapping it against the chair. She exhales a cloud of blue smoke, leans forward in anticipation.

Hilda falls out of her shoes, finds herself naked and a little cold.

Zelda comes to her with the knife still in hand. Holding it.

The pointed end goes to Hilda’s clavicle. She swallows, uncomfortable.

Zelda hadn’t killed her since they were in Russia. Zelda looks like she could kill her now but she has no reason so Hilda relaxes against the blade.

Zelda’s hand comes to clasp around her wrist, brings her hand up to her lips, presses a gentle kiss to Hilda’s hand and then just as sweetly she slashes Hilda’s palm wide-open, blood pooling to the surface of the wound.

The knife drops to the ground.

Zelda lowers her lips again and sucks the blood from her sister, taking it for they had not been able to kill the mortals and she longed for blood. She was hungry. And Hilda was nourishing her. She let her suck at her hand until she started feeling faint and Zelda magically healed her with her kisses, dropped to her knees and spread Hilda’s legs wide so that she could lick her and fuck her against the cottage door.

Hilda can hardly stand up. But her sister knows her body like an expert musician knew his violin. There’s the stroke of her tongue, the thrust of her fingers and Hilda has come to completion.

Zelda lifts her as if she weighs nothing - the blood has regenerated her - carries her to their straw bed and lays her down and proceeds to fuck her the way a man would fuck a woman with a wooden dildo she’d carved. And it’s both painful and yet feels so good.

And right before Zelda’s about to let her come she stops, she pauses and she wraps her dirty fingers around Hilda’s neck and the air goes out of her brain and she feels like she’s floating. Her sister is killing her and she feels like she’s hovering over the world in ecstasy.

She was God. She was everything. She was the whole world. She was nothing.

Her sister was out for blood and she was happy to give it to her.

The orgasm is inexplicable. Ephemeral.

She’s not certain if she’s dead or alive.

The next thing she is aware of is Zelda in a slinky sleep shirt, holding a bowl of stew in one hand, smiling at her prettily.

“You’d better eat something to get your strength up.”

Hilda lets her feed her.

Zelda praises her with kisses. She’s thanking her in her way.

They need to get out of the woods.


	7. Laughter

**Laughter**

Zelda never laughs.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

There was one night. Early on. They were living on the run. If Frederick found them he would have killed them. Hilda was astutely aware of this.

Zelda was dreadfully dim, always worried, always thinking, always looking for the next loop hole, grasping at straws to make it safe for them.

It wasn’t easy to be witches on the run. They no longer had the Coven, Zelda’s father to protect them. That would not be granted to them until much, much later.

It was a stressful time and they were living in a cheap inn above a rowdy bar that filled nightly with travelers who groped and grabbed at Zelda.

Hilda hated seeing her worried and in pain. This had happened because of *her* and she felt responsible for their present circumstances. It was because of her that Zelda had done what she’d done. It was because of her that they had run.

And she longed to make it up to Zelda. But in the middle of the night Zelda still smiled as she held her close in her arms. Zelda’s smile upon her was like the sun kissing the earth below.

She watched Hilda sleep at night. She caressed her, it felt as if Hilda was all she were living for.

Sometimes, Hilda knew, that was true.

So in the middle of the night as they lay facing one another, Zelda pressing blonde locks from Hilda’s shoulders, kissing her in that way that meant something might happen...Hilda’s foot accidentally brushed against Zelda’s foot and Zelda giggled.

Hilda lay back, shocked. “Did you...”

Zelda’s face hardened and then she bit her lip. “I’m ticklish. There.” She spoke shyly, softly.

Hilda was smiling. That laughter had been devilishly hell sent, beautiful in its melodiousness. Hilda wanted to hear it again so she passed her foot against Zelda’s and Zelda fought back a laugh, pushing at Hilda. “Stop it.”

“I’ve never heard you laugh.”

And then they’re clawing at one another and Hilda is delighted when Zelda laughs against her neck.


	8. The Reckoning

**The Reckoning**

Hilda watches as Zelda sleeps.

She’s angry with her.

Angry because she takes and takes and takes from her, as if the score has never been settled between them. It feels a bit like she’s held it over her head all of these years and lashes out by killing her.

They haven’t spoken for three weeks.

Ambrose and Sabrina are taut, walking on eggshells around them. Afraid to make the wrong move, upset the wrong aunt.

Sabrina never likes when Hilda is harrowed so she’s been a good girl and doesn’t provoke Zelda in the ways she is sometimes want to do.

Hilda has grown. She has learned in her years that she is valuable, that she has a voice apart from her sister’s. Zelda has always called the shots. Decided when and how they would move, what they would do, whom they would and would not *do*. Who Hilda, specifically, would not do.

And Hilda had spent so many years watching from the wings, allowing Zelda to dictate these moments.

Yes, go have a dalliance with that strapping young man.

No, not _her_.

Her? Oh yes...she seems innocent enough.

And Hilda no longer wishes to be told what to do. Like a stray little dog. Zelda’s held her back long enough.

She’s packed a bag and she’s not sure where she’s going to go or for how long or if she’ll come back or not, but she’s at least packed a bag.

She startles when she hears Zelda cough and shift in her sleep. She’s been smoking too much. Drinking too much. Hilda knows the strain between them has contributed to this.

She looks at Zelda, laying so helplessly, peacefully, sleeping like the dead. Her eyes move up the side of her body, those delicious porcelain hands with dark, blood red nails that knew every inch and every secret of Hilda.

And when she glances up she finds Zelda’s eyes are open and she’s looking at her. It’s the first time they’ve really looked at one another for days and in the early morning Hilda can see the cloudy hurt and pain in Zelda’s wizened eyes.

Zelda shifts, sits up, coughs, reaches for a cigarette because she when she’s been smoking as much as she has been she can’t function in the morning without.

“So, you’re leaving then?” She says and Hilda notices a tear trail down her cheek despite her indifferent disposition.

Hilda flicks something on her skirt. Looks away from this sad woman before her. “Yes.” But she knows it’s a lie.

Zelda nods and is crying openly then.


	9. I’ll Cover You

**I’ll Cover You**

Zelda is a closet healer. It’s not one of the skills she loudly advertises nor uses often.

She is sitting at the kitchen table, cigarette burning steadily, the Cairo paper stretched out in her hands.

She peers over the edge when she hears Hilda staggering into the kitchen, breathing heavily. She’s sweating, Zelda can see the pools of it beneath her arms, on her forehead. She’s carrying what looks like might be Sabrina’s vomit in a bowl.

The poor child had come down with the flu in the night and Hilda had vigilantly stayed up with her.

Ambrose, being a warlock, had not gone through these bouts of feverish nights. But Hilda seemed to know what half-mortals needed. And Zelda was grateful to her. For taking care of it.

Zelda was not good at caring for the unwell. It was established fact.

But Hilda looked like she was about to drop and Zelda grimaced as she watched her sister bury her head in the bowl she was carrying and vomit.

“Oh not you, too.” Zelda ashes her cigarette and tosses down her paper. She incants a protection spell beneath her breath and goes to clean up Hilda’s mess, to sit her down on the chair in the sitting room. She presses her hands to her chest and tries to remember the spell for stomach issues.

But then Sabrina is calling out.

“Hilda, you’re going to bed. I’ll deal with Sabrina.”

Hilda nods weakly and Zelda helps her up the stairs to their room, tucks her in before going to the screaming Sabrina.

The girl is thrashing about, has tears in her eyes. “My darling girl.”

Zelda sits at the edge of the bed and puts her hands on either side of the child, pressing down to calm her.

The synapses of her magic fire, warmth invades her, filters out from her to her niece. It feels foreign to her, but right.

“There there, calm down.” And she feels Sabrina’s sick body cooling beneath her touch. It takes more energy than she expected. She’s not sure if it’s because Sabrina may be all mortal or if it is because she’s a strong enchantress. She’s only five, so it’s hard to tell.

Soon, though, Sabrina’s snuggled at Zelda’s side, the sick girl’s fever having broken.

Sabrina recovers half-asleep on top of her Auntie Zee.

When Sabrina’s sound asleep, Zelda slips out of her room and goes to check on Hilda, finding her thrashing about. It must have been a powerful bug to infect her as well. She walks in the room, closes the door behind her. She steps out of her shoes and undoes her jacket. She climbs onto Hilda’s bed, covering her sister with her body.

She can feel as the equilibrium is restored in the ill body beneath her.

She rests tightly on top of her until Hilda’s temperature returns to normal.


	10. Emery

**Emery**

He was such a nice guy. Very charming, well-mannered enough to win over Zelda, who was a tough judge of character.

Zelda had brought him to dine with her current gentleman - The Count von Anstetten - one evening. And he’d taken a shining to Hilda. He’d cornered her when Zelda and the Count had been smoking opium in the den. He’d brushed her hair from her cheek, told her she was lovely, and she warmed to him. Because everyone always thought Zelda was the lovely sister. So, to have his attentions was overwhelming and very flattering.

She’d told Zelda about it that evening - their toes touching, knees, hands, breasts, lips.

“Really, young Emery?” Zelda’s eyes had shown with lust. Hilda liked when Zelda looked like this. “Yes, I do think he liked you quite a bit. I think it would be a well-suited match. Advantageous for us. I could finally take you to the opera...touch you on the balcony.” Zelda whispered against her ear, lined the shell of her ear with her tongue. It was a fantasy Zelda often liked to relay to her whenever she’d return from another dreadful night of opera with her Baron Bagot. He loved opera. And he loved having his hand up her skirts.

Emery was intelligent, cunning, smart. He liked to talk to Hilda. He liked to give her new experiences. There were parks and avenues and churches and buildings to explore. Things she had never seen before. A whole other world of nightlife that Zelda had kept her from.

And there were his kisses, the way he petted her after they’d both had one too many drinks at a bar. And she let him take her home to his flat because Zelda had approved and Hilda liked his attentions.

She even kind of liked the way he’d throw her on the bed and part her legs. It wasn’t like Zelda - though no one could ever and would ever touch Zelda in that regard. But so far as not being Zelda, it wasn’t bad.

But he was an artist.

And his mood could turn with the snap of a finger.

Hilda hadn’t noticed it until one evening he’d been edgy, had drank far too much. She went home with him, but something didn’t sit right with her. Something was off about him.

He wheeled around on her and slapped her across the face. The pain stung, shocked Hilda because he had been so very kind and so very sweet.

He looked shocked himself by his actions. He knelt before Hilda, tears in his eyes, crying and grasping at her. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. Do forgive me. Please, Hildy. I lost a commission, you see. I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you darling? Oh, you beautiful thing.” He kissed her and they made love. Hilda stunned.

She healed her black eye before returning to Zelda.

She didn’t want her to know. No one would hit Zelda (unless she wanted it). So, if Zelda found out, she’d take Emery away and he had been so sorry, so very sincere in his apology.

She felt like perhaps it had been her fault anyway. It had only been a passing mistake. And he really liked her. He’d told her so. Ans Zelda had so many dashing men admiring her all the time so Hilda deserved at least this. Didn’t she?

The third time it happened, however, she wasn’t so sure that it was always an accident. She’d said something funny - something that he felt undermined him - and he’d grasped her by the wrist roughly.

One night he refused to see her because she hadn’t gone to see an exhibit with him the day before - Zelda had needed her.

She thought he was done with her, but then he brought her flowers. Zelda watched as he presented them to Hilda with a flourish.

So, Hilda went out with him again.

Zelda was waiting up for her that evening when she got home. She was smoking in the parlor and reading a novel.

Hilda’s ribs hurt -something had upset Emery - but she stood straight and proud. “Z-Zelda, you’re still up.”

Zelda put down her book. “Hilda...you do realize that you haven’t let me touch you for weeks. And it makes me concerned. Not that we must touch - it’s only that I have come to find that when this happens you’re keeping something from me. This time I have a suspicion it’s about our young Emery. And it makes me concerned. Should I be concerned?”

“N-no.” Hilda shifted, ran her foot against the rug.

Zelda looked at her, studied her. Hilda knows she can see through her. “Hilda,” Zelda has unfolded herself from the chair and is moving towards her. Her voice is soft. “Is he treating you well, this Emery?” Zelda brushed a stray tendril of Hilda’s hair from her cheek and Hilda flinched.

Zelda froze. “Hilda.”

“It’s not...”

“Oh, it is. I had hoped...Satan!” Zelda is enraged, her cheeks bright red with anger. “I’ll kill him.”

“No!” Hilda gasped, crying. “He’s not a bad person he just gets upset...it’s nothing....”

“It’s not nothing.” And Zelda has already changed and she has murder playing in her eyes as she moves to the door.

She holds Hilda off and leaves.

* * *

Hilda doesn’t sleep that night.

Zelda doesn’t return until the morning. She has blood on her hands. She rids herself of her gloves, rips off her skirts and shirts and climbs into the bed in her corset.

She wraps her arms around Hilda, hugs her tightly against her.

And Hilda cries.

“You’re worthier and more deserving than that, Hildegard Spellman. And don’t you _ever_forget that.”


	11. Leaves

**Leaves**

She stood at the edge.

She watched as the currents of the water rushed rapidly, angrily by beneath her. They moved more hastily than usual because of the torrential rains of recent.

She admired the water. How strong and fierce it was, how if she allowed herself to topple over she would be swept up in the raging mass, tossed and tumbled to death.

Ah, death.

It felt like a kind, peaceful option. To slip and fall and go to sleep for eternity.

No one would care. Her father certainly wouldn’t care. He’d already shown her that she was worthless, useless to him.

Her magic wasn’t good enough.

What she lacked between her legs made her less than.

If only, if only she’d been born a man. Things would be different.

She felt the power, the intellect she possessed. It ripped through her, brought her to life, made her body alight with waves of magic, sent warm, tingly sensations racing through every inch of her being. She could taste it, that feeling of being lauded and respected for her power and position and ability.

And it brought her immeasurable pain. She felt the stab, the pang of knowledge that she could not have that. She would not be awarded the opportunity, the chance to live up to her highest potential.

She was a woman.

She had womanly duties: to be married to Frederick, to produce children, to serve the church silently and obediently. She was expected to not put her knowledge and leadership to use.

And it made her want to scream, to call out in pain, to refuse to be nothing more than a matronly kitchen witch.

Hilda was a good kitchen witch.

She had to admit she admired that in her.

Hilda.

She looked up, thinking she’d caught a glimpse of something far off in the woods. There was a flash of red.

She recognized the shade, knew the cape.

Hilda was watching her.

Their eyes met. Hilda looked worried, her brow knit. Zelda could make out the shape of her concern from her spot atop the bridge.

Hilda was watching.

She seemed to always be watching her.

When they sat across from one another at dinner. When they worked in the house. When Zelda was reading. When Zelda was burning matches down to the end so that she burnt herself. Purposefully.

Hilda was watching.

She was a curious young thing.

She had not been impregnated in the year that she’d been with them. As if she’d willed it so.

Frederick was getting upset with her. Zelda pleaded for more time. Not that she wanted Hilda to be subjected to Frederick’s rough, careless sex nor a pregnancy that would follow. It was only that Hilda’s curious eyes on her made her feel somehow important. Perhaps it was vain, but when the young witch looked at her she felt confident, powerful. She was drawn to those deeply, ocean-blue eyes.

Always watching.

And it was no different now. She’d followed her here. She’s known just where Zelda was headed.

Zelda looked back down at the angry, white-capped water beneath her.

No, it wouldn’t be today.

She turned and lowered herself to the ground. Her feet carried her along the bridge to where a trail dipped off the main road, heading straight towards her voyeur.

Hilda ducked shyly, shamefully behind a tree but Zelda’s eyes upon her signified that she didn’t mind being caught out as she had been.

They approached one another, Hilda looking as if she might reach out to Zelda but then she thought better of it. Instead she turned and they walked in easy silence, shoulder-to-shoulder, back to the place they called home.

Leaves crunched beneath their feet as they went. Only the sounds of breathing between them.


	12. A Moment in the Woods

**A Moment in the Woods**

It suited Zelda just fine.

Being a lecturer at the Unholy Academy of Edinburgh.

She was grateful to use her mind and not her body to influence others. She could feel the relief in Hilda’s body when they laid beside one another at night. Hilda knew when to expect her each evening and when she would leave in the morning and where she was going and with whom.

Life was suddenly made predictable.

Edward had come to find them. He’d pulled them from Germany, sensing something sinister on the horizon. When he’d knocked on their cottage door Zelda had nearly killed him before she realized that it was her brother.

He had informed them that Frederick had been burned as a heretic. They were free from him and father wanted Zelda to put her mind to use and come to the Academy. He wanted to assure her safety for the coming mortal war and the Academy, hidden away from time and space in the mortal realm, would afford her that.

Hilda had been overjoyed to get them out of the woods and back into civilization.

They shared a room in the teacher’s wing of the Academy. It was not nearly as private or as convenient as the cottage in the woods had been. But they made do.

Zelda had to re-acclimate to skirts, but the lectures, the subjects enthralled her and she taught with relish and fervor.

Hilda put her culinary skills to work in the kitchen, providing meals for everyone, as well as helping to teach young witches the basics of kitchen spell-crafting.

It felt stable.

For a time, it was.

He was taller than the other pupils.

He seemed well-liked, popular amongst the boys. Perhaps he got in trouble outside her classroom but inside he was as docile as a kitten. He never put pen to paper in her class but always received top marks. It was as if he memorized every word that passed through her lips.

She could always feel his shy eyes upon her when she’d glance up and over her glasses to peer at them while she lectured. She watched him slink in and out of her classroom.

His gaze was soft, curious. He had a certain feeling about him, as if he were a soul who had lived for a very, very long time. Yet, he was hardly seventeen.

She watched him, as he watched her.

She thought of him when Hilda was between her legs at night. She thought of him when she graded her papers. She thought of him while smoking in the armchair by the window, reading histories of witches.

She despised herself for this infatuation. There had been so many men. So very, very many men, all the same, all seducible, usable.

But there was something pure in Jonathan Rivers. His athletic, strong build that he hadn’t quite grown into. His shaggy, dark hair, the way it fell in his eyes and he’d smooth it back with one flick of his hand.

Everything seemed so very easy for him. He conjured better than anyone she had ever met and yet he was only a child. No older than Hilda had been when they’d first...

“What are you thinking about, lamb?” Hilda could sense her fevered distraction.

“Nothing.” And she’d feel foolish for being caught out thinking of him.

She burned when he was the last to leave the classroom. He never spoke to her directly and yet their eyes seemed to communicate quite well.

She felt like she might explode. Hilda was usually enough to waylay such feelings, but this time she was not enough. And for the first time Zelda felt guilty about her lurid thoughts.

She was haunted with dreams of disgustingly sweet pastoral scenes involving _him_. Exploring him from head to toe, touching, caressing, languorously.

He, a student. She, his teacher.

And how terrible she would be to corrupt him, to take him into her arms and make him come inside of her.

Would she be his first? She always dreamed she was.

And she’d awake sweaty and bothered and roll over to touch and kiss Hilda awake.

She knew Hilda knew. She could sense it.

“Whatever it is, love, take care of it.” Hilda whispered one sweaty, early morning.

Zelda escaped to the woods with her cigarettes and a book, needing the space, the air.

She sat by a stream and chain-smoked while reading Proust in French.

She heard the crunch of leaves.

She could sense him before he appeared. 

He sat down beside her. She offered him a cigarette but he declined, took the one burning in her hand instead.

They were alone in the wilderness.

Her heart pounded. He lifted her chin to face him and asked for permission with his eyes. So certain, so calm. She saw the flecks of gold in his gaze.

Lips met.

They undressed one another, serenely, calmly. He praised her body with his hands yet she knew he was a novice and it endeared her to him more. She embraced her role as teacher, kindly, patiently coaxing, urging him on.

She handled him with tender care, a relief finally washing over her when she guided him between her legs and let him lay atop her.

It was innocent and wholesome. It was everything Zelda despised and yet it made her feel youthful, free - as she had never been.

They laid facing one another in the grass, naked and warm from the sun, listening to the trickle of water in the nearby stream. He wrapped his fingers in her hair.

They kissed.

She was pleased when she saw him walking down the hall hand-in-hand with a young witch. Their eyes met. An appreciative, knowing look was shared only between them.


	13. La luz de la luna

**La luz de la luna**

Sunlight glistened off the surface of the Atlantic.

Ambrose crashed through the waves.

Hilda felt Zelda - hidden behind sunglasses, hat, umbrella, and striped burgundy and white swim suit- tense beside her as she watched the young warlock. She had an innate maternal instinct that she hid behind a stern facade.

It endeared Zelda to her more.

Rio de Janeiro was warm this time of year. In the Northern Hemisphere they would be celebrating Yule about now, but in the Southern Hemisphere it was Litha. They still bought Ambrose presents, burned a symbolic yule log on the beach one evening.

Zelda lifted a cigarette to her lips and inhaled. Hilda watched the repeated action, so familiar to her. The scent of cloves in her cigarettes had become a comfort to Hilda.

Hilda stretched her hand across the space between them atop the arms of their chairs. Her pinky finger brushed Zelda’s.

Without turning to look at her, Zelda trapped her finger beneath her own.

Her eyes stayed trained on Ambrose splashing around with some local children. 

There had not been a day like today for a long while. She knew South America was temporary but Zelda was a different person here.

“Oh,” Zelda started as if waking from a dream. “I forgot.” Hilda watched her sister reach down into her beach bag and pull out a little box. She handed it casually to Hilda.

“Wh-what is this?”

Zelda’s eyes darted over to Hilda as she flicked her cigarette. “A little something for yule.” She brought the cigarette to her crimson lips.

“Zelds, you already...”

“Open it.” Zelda turned her attention back to Ambrose.

Hilda stared at the black box. It was light in her hands. She peered down at it, dared to slip her finger beneath the deep purple-red bow, wiggling it loose. She could feel Zelda’s eyes on her as she slid off the lid.

Her brow creased. It was an empty box.

Zelda laughed, “it’s not empty.”

Ah, no. There was a piece of paper. She lifted it from the bottom of the box and unfolded it, delighting in the slender, delicate curl of Zelda’s handwriting. It reminded her of when they had written to one another in private and then burned the letters.

She had forgotten their shared intimacies of so long ago.

_Hildie,_

_Meet me on the beach tonight under the Cold Moon. _

_Yours always,_

_Zelds_

Zelda kept her eyes trained on Ambrose when Hilda turned to smile at her.

* * *

Hilda put Ambrose to bed early, read him stories and made him drink a sleepy tea. He drifted off soundly and she slipped away, finding Zelda in a revealing little number covered by her favorite see-through robe.

“Is he asleep?” She asked, tucking a blanket beneath her arm.

Hilda nodded, lost for a moment on the curve of her sister’s chest.

Zelda smiled knowingly. “Come.” She held out her hand for Hilda.

Zelda made a nice spread of blankets and pillows and a bottle of Brazilian Syrah between them. They were reclined atop the soft beach, Hilda in Zelda’s arms. The breeze off the ocean felt nice, the hypnotic crash of the tide against the shore sounding a bit like Zelda’s steadily beating heart.

And Hilda realized that since Ambrose had come to them things had shifted. Changed. They had grown apart, they had drifted away. Their moments of shared intimacy had declined.

But Hilda knew that this was Zelda’s way of bringing them back together again, as they always found their way back.

And she reveled in the feel of Zelda’s arms, the warmth of their bodies pressed together, her sister’s fingers as they played over her skin, the oaky vanilla of the Syrah, the light of the moon shining down upon them.

The full moon would fade and disappear but be birthed again, as they would be for one another.

Forever. For always. For always hers.


	14. La petite mort

**La petite mort**

Once she died the first time the taste of it never left her body.

She had conceived.

By all conjuring and magicking accounts she was pregnant with a male heir.

Frederick put her on a pedestal, lavished her with care, gave her respite from grueling nights of trying and trying and trying again.

Hilda preferred this arrangement, delighting in being left alone by him. And while she was grateful for the space, she was so very afraid of what it meant to be pregnant. To have something growing inside of her.

And she felt herself slipping, slipping away. The more the child grew, the less she felt like herself. She was only eighteen, newly anointed to the way of witchcraft and she was expecting a child.

She hated the way it made her body feel, how strong he grew with each passing day, how weak she became.

Zelda doted on her in private. She came to her in the night when everything was dark and frightening and she laid with Hilda in her arms - the way a mother might love and protect her child.

Hilda wanted to forget so she’d pull and grasp and fuck Zelda desperately, wantonly. Zelda obliged her, gave her anything she wanted, did anything she wanted.

Afterwards, Zelda would press her ear to Hilda’s stomach and listen in the quiet of night to the heartbeat of the baby boy. Hilda watched Zelda swell with a maternal pride that she, herself, could not yet feel, had no grasp or comprehension of. It was as if this child were Zelda’s and she loved him already.

Hilda lay frightened, feeling alone and scared, afraid to disrupt Zelda’s love for this unborn child.

One night, deep into her third trimester - the baby very strong and kicking inside of her - Hilda laid awake, waiting for Zelda. She heard the door unlatch, looked up expectantly.

But she found that it was not Zelda who had come at all.

“It seems your precious Zelda is otherwise occupied this evening.” Agatha wielded a knife.

Hilda clamored up in bed. Fear racing through her. “Wh-what are you doing?” She was already losing her life to this child she didn’t want and now Agatha was going to kill her. She understood this much. She very nearly welcomed it.

Only the thought of Zelda coming to find her after she was finished with Frederick and not knowing what had happened - knowing Zelda would go into a panic - made Hilda less able to accept this fate.

Agatha flicked her wrist and they were suddenly at the edge of a nearby cliff - a cliff Hilda had observed Zelda standing on top of too many times to count.

“You’re so very happy, aren’t you? That you should have a boy. But it’s not your place. You’re a hussy, a whore, and you don’t even love him. You’d rather spend your nights with Zelda - Satan knows why. But I won’t stand by and let you bring his son into this world.” She brandished the knife again and Hilda tried to back up, tried to reason with her - for she didn’t want to have this child any more than Agatha wanted her to have this child - but the words died on her tongue.

And she died over the edge of the cliff, the knife driven straight into the baby boy’s heart. Twisted, squished, never to be.

She toppled downwards, felt herself bouncing from ridge to ridge until a rock slammed into her head and knocked her out cold.


	15. La zone occupée

**La zone occupée**

There were some things that Hilda should never know.

There were things that she did during the war that she hoped no one would ever know.

They spoke in English, as it was their shared language despite the fact she knew German almost better than he. Though she did not indulge this tidbit of helpful information.

Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Scholz. Heinz.

He brought her black-market cigarettes to the hotel room she was occupying.

He had fallen so perfectly into her lap. Joining her at a café table several days after the birds had flown off from Paris.

He’d inquired so very politely about why such a beautiful woman should be alone on such a day. And she noticed the insignia on his uniform, informing her of his position. And to him she was a gallery owner, a fine connoisseur of high arts.

“Hopefully you put forth the German painters above others.” He’d teased her, lighting a cigarette and she had inhaled the scent of it longingly. He seemed to notice.

“But I have a French gallery, certainly I should exhibit French talent.” She dared.

He tapped off his cigarette. “But you are not French, so what difference does it make? After this war you will only have German paintings anyway.”

She had glowered at him, biting her tongue not to snap back at him.

And then his handsome face had relaxed into a smile and she knew that despite his rank and his position he believed it no more than she. And yet here he was and here she was. In occupied Paris. No longer the romantic city she had escorted men through in the last century.

And yet, Heinz insisted he know where she stayed so that he might see her again.

So he came to her with presents. Cigarettes, bits of meat and hard-to-get produce, paintings he’d happened upon, one time he even surprised her with a fur coat.

She stayed out past curfew, accompanying him to nightclubs to watch naked women dance. She listened to him speak when he thought he was only addressing his fellow lieutenants. Yet, she understood and she kept a meticulous mental record of each German word he spoke. Logistics, intricate details about the Führer and the plans to come.

He would accompany her home. His wedding band shown bright gold against her skin in the dimly lit hotel room.

There were things she’d wished had been different. But it was the war and anything was permissible. That she slept with him was hardly an offense against what it was she had been placed in so precarious a position to do. Given her abilities and her wherewithal and her obligations.

The Germans were dashing, handsome men with kind, gentle manners.

Until they were not.

Until word got out about plans, logistics, intricate details about the Führer. And no one could quite understand where the leak came from.

One night Heinz grabbed her slightly rougher than usual. “Kannst du Deutsch?”

She smiled at him. “Darling, would you light me a cigarette? I’ve an awful headache.”

He smiled his charming smile and lit the cigarette for her.

Black-market rations equivalent to a fur coat and a package of food found its way to a cottage with a bountiful garden in the zone libre. A note tucked secretly between the potatoes.

_H,_

_Am safe. More soon._

_Forever yours,_

_Z_


	16. The Color of Sexuality

**The Color of Sexuality**

Zelda’s sexuality flowed red hot like lava and Hilda’s was the pale blue of a calm summer day.


	17. Life and Death

**Life and Death**

Zelda remembered the day Edward had come into her life and the day he’d left it.

The former had happened when she was approaching her third decade, the latter her third century.

The baby, swaddled up atop her lap, looked so much like he had. Her bright, inquisitive eyes that stared up at Zelda, the perfect curve of her nose, her pert little lips. It suited her to be a girl and not a prodigal son. Zelda could sense that she knew just what she was doing coming into this world half-mortal, half-witch, and female.

Zelda’s hand shook as she lifted the glass tumbler of honeyed whiskey to her tear stained lips.

She pressed the sweating glass to her throbbing forehead. Her eyes were scratchy, cheeks salty and swollen.

Sabrina cooed in her lap, oblivious to her new reality.

The plane had gone down somewhere across the Atlantic, Faustus Blackwood had said. There was no trace of it, he’d said. No clue as to what had happened, he said.

Edward was a damned good warlock and if he’d wanted the plane to land safely he sure as hell fire could have made it happen. Zelda was convinced of this.

He and his blasted mortal battles. His mortal wife, his mortal doctrine, his adorable half-mortal daughter that was staring up at Zelda with such a pleased little smile on her lips.

Zelda despised it all.

Damn him.

A tear slid down her cheek. The glass tumbler placed back against her lips, the liquid in the glass trembling as she did so.

“Zelds, love.” Hilda’s hand fell on her shoulder. She shrugged her off. “You’ve had a long day. Let me take her and draw you a bath.”

“No.” Zelda petulantly stated, unwilling to relinquish the child.

Instead she clasped Sabrina in her arms and climbed unsteadily – Hilda following behind – up the stairs to their bedroom, and curled her tired body around the baby in her bed. Still fully clothed, still heavily made-up. As if she might somehow go back in time to that morning when she’d gotten ready for the day. Before Faustus Blackwood had come to them.

Sabrina wiggled in her arms but soon drifted off to sleep.

Zelda’s eyes were heavy but her body fought off sleep. She stared at the wall across from her bed blankly.

Until she saw Hilda’s eyes come into few, felt her body align with her own atop the bed.

They cradled Sabrina between them.

Hilda stroked her cheek until her eyes slid closed and sleep overcame her.

Blackness.

For a moment she forgot.


	18. Girl Crush

**Girl Crush**

Smoked billowed out from Zelda’s cigarette like a chimney on a cold winter’s day as she sat hunched over the mortuary account ledgers, her glasses sliding down her nose, little curses emitted forth every now and again.

She would, again, not be able to make it to the parent-teacher conferences this year.

Hilda would go. Hilda did not mind going, for she enjoyed this task far more than being forced to work with numbers - a task Zelda much preferred.

“Don’t you smoke yourself to death and don’t sit here all day. You know you need to stretch your legs.” Hilda dared to admonish Zelda. She figured any punishment bestowed upon her by the elder Spellman would be worth it to keep Zelda in some semblance of health.

Zelda merely snarled at her and eyed the cup of tea Hilda placed delicately atop some paperwork at her elbow.

Hilda leaned down to press her lips to Zelda’s forehead.

It was a pleasant fall day in Greendale and Hilda was pleased to take the car into town. She would go to Sabrina’s mortal school to speak with her mortal teachers. It happened every year and every year Zelda was mysteriously occupied on the day of this meeting.

This was Sabrina’s second year at Baxter High. She had received high reports the previous year from all the teachers involved so Hilda expected nothing less this year.

She breezed through the science teacher and history teachers - both lauding Sabrina on her attention to detail and fine work so far.

And then she found herself speechless before Sabrina’s English teacher. Ms. Mary Wardwell.

“Sabrina is an excellent student. I am very pleased to have her in my class.” Ms. Wardwell spoke softly, eyes hidden behind her dark, cat-eye frames. A finger went nervously to her lacquered beehive. “She seems to have an excellent support system of friends, what with Roz and Harvey and Susie.”

“Y-yes.” Hilda was tongue-tied. Tantalized by the striking blue of those hidden eyes, as they peered at her uncertainly, almost apologetically. “Yes, I’m certainly glad. She has....such...wonderful friends.” It was very warm in the room. Dreadfully warm. Hilda pulled at her turtleneck.

Ms. Wardwell smiled awkwardly.

There was something so very familiar yet so very foreign about this woman. There was a relatable awkwardness that Hilda understood acutely. She sensed bits of herself, her own personality mirrored in this glorious creature. Whose shimmering eyes and tantalizing lips – which pursed together – oh God! Had Hilda been staring at her lips? But there was something so very familiar in her face. Ms. Wardwell reminded her so very much of...

“Ms. Spellman?”

_Oh_, Ms. Wardwell had been asking her something.

“Uh, s-sorry. Y-yes? What was that, love?” Hilda asked distractedly, realizing her eyes had gone to the perfect strain of pert breasts beneath a tight hunter green sweater.

Ms. Wardwell’s lips twitched upwards. “I asked if everything was going well. At home?”

“Oh, quite. Quite.” Was there something wrong with the way she and Zelda were raising Sabrina? She had thought they’d given her everything she needed, everything a budding young mortal ne witch could ever want or need...was something wrong? “Is there something wrong?” Hilda found herself asking, frowned, chastised herself for having thoughts about Sabrina’s mild-mannered, docile, probably quite conservative, English teacher.

Ms. Wardwell shook her head. “Wrong? Oh no. No, I didn’t mean to worry you. It was only that she mentioned her mother and father...about how they...”

“Yes, tragic accident. When she was a babe. But her Aunt Zelda and I have raised her. The best we could.”

“I would say very well. Very well indeed.” Ms. Wardwell smiled warmly, leaned slightly forward, clasped her hands atop the desk. Her breasts squeezed together ever so…Hilda closed her eyes, felt her cheeks burning.

And Hilda realized she’d developed a mighty, mighty crush on a one Ms. Mary Wardwell.


	19. Russian roulette

**Russian Roulette**

Zelda’s love of furs began in Moscow.

Hilda remembered the sable she’d purchased for some exorbitant fee. On a whim. And she’d looked devilishly delicious in that coat. But it was practical in the Russian winter.

And Zelda had exhibited her newly found fur in a most provocative manner. Stripped bare to nothing, before a roaring fire. She’d pulled the coat from its package and slid it over her just-sexed body. And Hilda had marveled at her own private showing of the fur’s illustrious debut on Zelda’s exquisite frame. “Isn’t it divine?” She’d asked, lighting up a fresh cigarette, petting herself, coming closer for Hilda to do the same.

But there was a second package that Zelda had hidden. With the flick of her finger it appeared.

“Well open it, darling.”

Hilda was never the fashionable one. She had always been much more practical in her clothing choices. She worried that her sister had gone too far, but as she lifted the lid, she realized there was the perfect long coat in a forest shade of green with the perfect fur collars and cuffs and trim. “Oh, Zelda.”

“Too keep you warm, of course, Hildie. Can’t have my darling sister freezing to death on our travels.” Zelda helped her into the coat, standing behind Hilda before the floor length mirror. Her hand smoothed over the wool possessively, a pleased look on Zelda’s face that she could find something so perfect for Hilda.

And Hilda adored it, had never felt so regal in all her life.

And Hilda knew there was a bit of guilt stitched into this present. Zelda still felt terribly about killing her.

Once she’d died the first time it was not so hard to die again.

Only it took some getting used to to die at Zelda’s hands.

Zelda was a skilled murderess. When she wanted to be. A very fine marksman, she’d shot Hilda right into a Cain pit on the outskirts of town. Tears streaming down her face.

Hilda had asked. Zelda had given it to her.

Now Zelda was docile. She was taking Hilda away from the dark and dreary Moscow they had both come to hate.

They boarded the Trans-Siberian railway train car promptly at seven the following morning. Hilda watched as all eyes turned to watch Zelda pass in her luxurious furs - most wondering what man had bestowed such a gift upon her. Little did they know...

They had a sleeper car to themselves. The cabin smelled of coal and fresh linens.

The train was loud beneath their feet, all metal and clanging and the scream of the horn. The city passed by in a dark blue and soon the sun rose over the uninhabited countrysides of The Soviet Union. Verdant greenery dusted with snow rushed past the window, but if looked at more closely, froze in their places, reminding Hilda that it was she who was moving. Moving forwards, always forwards.

Zelda was insatiable, had been since Hilda had reanimated. She took her in the night, possessively. And occasionally after tea mid-day.

They were moving, moving to escape. Because it was never safe for them without a coven. Trapped in a tiny compartment in the middle of no where for days on end seemed about as safe as they could be.

The men eyed Zelda. They watched her smoke carelessly and drink her liquor. They found her appealing, unlike the other mortal women.

But she did little more than speak with them, always looking at Hilda with that special, knowing gaze that only they understood.

She’d wink over the rim of her glass.

She’d take Hilda back to their compartment and press her to the door. “Don’t you know you’re mine and you’ll always be mine no matter what?”

Hilda could only nod as dark-red lipstick stained her neck. Another shirt ruined to Zelda’s lips.

They arrived in China elegantly, if not a little unsteady on solid ground. They had landed in the spiritual corner of the world that could hide them for a time, could mask what it was they had done and were capable of doing.

Hilda wouldn’t ask for death here.


	20. Jasmine and Musk

**Jasmine and Musk**

There were some things that Zelda should never know. There were things that she did during the war that she hoped no one would ever know.

The women who came to her gritted their teeth and put on a brave face. Most didn’t even cry out, at most only ever a little whimper, as they spread their legs and kept their eyes closed.

“There, there, love. Almost done.” Hilda would speak softly, kindly.

And once it was over she would take the women to the kitchen for some tea and a war-time version of her famous biscuits to get their energy up. She would do up a nice sachet of “specialty” herbed tea for the cramps and the pain, and then send the no longer expectant mothers on their way.

The war did disastrous things to women. And somehow women who found themselves in precarious situations found their way to Hilda’s cottage and she took care of them. Swiftly, carefully, discreetly, and a little magically. And the more word got out of her healing ways, the more traffic came to her. 

All codes and locks and safeties to ensure that she wasn’t found out, of course.

And once the women were on their way, Hilda prepared the evening meal. Piles and piles of vegetables to chop and bread to make and thoughts of Zelda in Paris haunting her all the while.

Zelda was never too far from her mind.

What would Zelda be doing now?

But she couldn’t dwell on it too long. She could feel her sister’s life force throbbing; they were one and she would know - wouldn’t she? - if something were wrong.

And there wasn’t time for such thoughts for there were mouths to feed.

Hilda would magic open the latch at the back of the hall closet and room upon room would appear. Ashamed fathers and weary mothers and silent babies and shy little ones peered out at her and she smiled amiably, able to put on a brave face while she made sure every last one of them had food and something to drink.

Her magic could multiply what little her garden and the rations could create.

She magicked the door back into place, fought back the unsettled tears these families evoked within her.

Sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, Hilda allowed her fingers to pass over the ink of Zelda’s most recent message.

More soon.

There would be more mouths to feed. Hilda could make out the hidden words etched atop the parchment. Three families would arrive in two nights.

Then there would be a knock at her backdoor. Three short raps, perfectly in a row. She’d tuck away the note and wipe beneath her eyes.

She would pull the door open and be lost in two cool pools of sky blue that would always search her face with a tender kindness. The older woman was a breath of fresh air away from the grim realities surrounding them. She reminded Hilda of Spring days and freedom. Her lips made her forget, pacified her from her want.

They had found one another in war, united in their longing for their respected other half, but able to find solace in the other.

“Hilda, what ever is wrong?” Celine could see her sadness, took the tired, smaller woman into her arms.

And they’d wind their way to Hilda’s little bed tucked away at the back of the cottage beneath the windows that overlooked a serene stream - or what would be serene were it not for the war closing in all around them – that once she’d gazed at in Zelda’s arms.

And they took and gave what the other needed.

And Hilda clung to Celine in the night - Celine who smelled of vanilla and lavender.

Not the jasmine and musk of Zelda. But it would do. It would do.


	21. Her Hair

**Her Hair**

“I’m telling you, there’s something different about her.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“She’s just...different.”

“Different how?”

“Well...it’s her hair.”

“Her hair?”

“Yes, her hair.”

“It’s very nice, her hair.”

“Yes, but she’s never worn it down. Not like that.”

“And how would you know how she wears her hair?”

“She...uh, she comes to Dr. Cerberus’. You know, for books, and milkshakes...”

“And you, I presume, spend hours memorizing every little detail about her?”

“What - no! I just...noticed how she likes to wear her hair, is all.”

“Sounds like you noticed a lot more than just that. Ouch! Why are you hitting me?”

“Just pay attention, Zelds. She’s different and no one else seems to care.”

“Well it’s rather inconsequential if she wears her hair up or down. Some days I wear my hair up and some days I wear my hair down but I’m still me.”

“But it’s more than that! She’s like an entirely different person.”

“You know I find it very interesting that you’re suddenly so taken by her.”

“I’m not..._taken_ by her.”

“Oh come, she’s a very lovely woman, I just always thought of her as...oh, I don’t know. Kind of a bore.”

“She’s really not though! Did you know she’s very fascinated by Greendale’s history?”

“She’s interested in witches. La-di-da...Hildegard! If you hit me again, I swear...”

“But would you listen to me? There’s something unusual about her. She’s changed. It’s her mannerisms...the way she walks, even the way she talks. And she - she doesn’t even look at me anymore. When she comes into Dr. Cee’s.”

“Perhaps she has something else on her mind. I mean what person in their right mind wouldn’t want to look at you?”

“Cut it out.”

“I’m serious.”

“Well I can never...”

“Oh, stop it. Now, I’m sure she’s the same old lonely spinster woman in the woods as she has always been. But if it means so much to you, I will look into the matter.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Now would you kindly remove your nightie? If she’s not going to look at you then I sure as Satan will.”


	22. Blood on Her Hands

**Blood on Her Hands**

There was blood on her hands when Frederick found her. Agatha’s body laid dead and bloody beneath her, her toothy daughters petrified and crumpled in a circle about them.

“What have you done?” He demanded, pulling the knife from her loose hand, grabbing her roughly to turn her to face him. He shook her. Tears raced down her cheeks. “What the heavens have you done?” His hand collided with her cheek.

“Hilda...the baby...”

“Where is she? What has happened?”

Zelda shook her head, eyes widening as she realized just what Frederick was implying. “No.”

“You’ve killed her. You...”

“No.” Zelda shook her head. “No.”

“You’ve killed them all.”

“No, it was...” Zelda’s heart pounded when Frederick’s strong hand wrapped around her neck.

“How could you forsake me like this?”

“I-I didn’t.” Zelda whispered through her closed windpipe, clawing at his hands.

“Why would you do this to me?” Frederick had fire in his eyes. He would kill her, his grip so tight and strong.

She felt the world go blurry around her. Not enough air. Not enough...

Some inexplicable force shot through her. Something whispered in her ear.

_It’s not over yet. _

She kicked, angling right at Frederick’s weak spot and he staggered backwards.

“She killed your son, you bastard.” Zelda choked, grasped at her throat before reaching for the knife that had fallen between them. “She killed Hilda.” The tears were falling from her eyes.

Frederick righted himself and made to come after her again but she shot up a forcefield, stopping him in his tracks, freezing him in place.

It would be enough. It would hold long enough for her to leave.

* * *

The branches scratched at her cheeks as she ran. Her feet carried her forwards, forwards through the trees and forest, a force propelling her through the woods, something telling her where to go.

The moon shown high above her head. Blood dried on her cheeks, flowed from fresh cuts, her feet bare, her throat bruised so that she gasped for air.

But that indefinable force propelled her forwards. Onwards.

Until she reached the edge of a cliff.

There was nowhere to go but down.

She peered over the edge, her eyes scanning over the dirt and bramble below. There was no sign of a body, no sign that anything at all had happened here. And yet she had been led to this spot.

The wind whipped through her hair.

“Hilda.” She whispered, fresh tears slipping down her cheeks.

Silence. The wind in the trees. An owl hooting.

There was nothing left.

Why had she fought? She could have succumbed to Frederick’s hands. She could have died and let this all end.

A rock slid over the edge. She watched its motion.

She could do the same.

Her eyes traveled downwards again, body shifting closer to the edge.

“Zelda!”

And she was drawn from the brink, wrapped up into the younger woman’s embrace. Hilda’s body taut and tight and no longer pregnant as it pressed against her. What had happened?

“Zelda, your face.” Hilda cradled her cheek in the moonlight.

And Zelda pulled Hilda tightly into her arms, shocked by her presence. She rested her head on her shoulder, breathed her in - still very much alive - rocking her in the gentle, magical winds that blew around them.

“We have to get out of here.”


	23. The Last Chapter

**The Last Chapter**

Home.

Edward had brought them home to Greendale.

The three of them. An odd assortment of road-weary compatriots.

Ambrose settled into the attic room. Hilda and Zelda taking what once had been Zelda’s childhood bedroom.

Hilda watched from the high bed as Zelda examined the space as if she’d never seen it before. As if she were an intruder. 

It was alien, foreign to her.

But there was the photo of young Zelda on the nightstand. A ribbon she’d received from the academy. A doll atop the dresser. Little mementos of a childhood.

And Zelda had been a darling little freckled red-headed thing. Hilda fingered the picture, wished she could have known Zelda when she was six or nine or five or three. How darling she looked in the image, how carefree and innocent.

The haunted eyes that darted about the room now were no longer the eyes of the pictured child. These eyes had seen too much, had endured more than her fair share of life.

Zelda smoked irritably, her shoulders tight.

Hilda wondered if the tension would slip away the longer they stayed put.

Edward had come to find Zelda in South America. Their father had died. Edward wanted them to come home. Hilda had agreed that perhaps it was time to put down roots. Ambrose could attend the Academy. Edward needed help in his newly acquired role as High Priest.

Zelda had bristled at this. But Hilda knew she was delighted to be needed.

She watched as the red-head paced before her. Uneasy. Tightly wound. Restless in the calm country dusk.

“There’s no need to run now.” Hilda whispered.


	24. The Unmentionables

**The Unmentionables**

Hilda hated doing the laundry.

Though she never told anyone about this particular dislike. She did it without complaint.

At first the soapy water that dried her hands, the ceaseless scrubbing that left her arms sore and tired, the beating, the hanging, followed by the folding. It was endless with so many children in the house. The sloppy, toothy girls that ran wild in the forests and bloodied their knees and rolled in dirt.

It was her relegated task as youngest wife. And she took to it without protest because she didn’t have it in her to say no.

And it was a quiet task. A solitary chore for which she was grateful.

And there was one hidden treat that made her cheeks burn with shame and pleasure.

The lace was fine, most likely from Chantilly. The satin was soft and smooth against her fingers. The colors varied but were always splendidly dark and sinister. Blood red, purpled burgundy, a deep forest green, midnight black, a deep winter sky blue.

Frederick would have seen these. He would have removed them from _her_ body.

Hilda thought about this in the evenings when she’d surreptitiously watch Zelda while she knit. Zelda would sit across the room from her, curled atop her chair reading. Hilda would secretly imagine the color, the way in which it would be touching and hugging _her_ in those unmentionable places.

And Zelda’s eyes would catch her looking. And Hilda’s attention would immediately return back to her knitting.

Though Zelda’s gaze would remain upon her. She could feel the elder woman watching her. As if she knew just what Hilda had been thinking.

Hilda sat slumped over the wash basin, burgundy satin in her hands. She peered about her - for she was always weary of those children’s demonic little prying eyes. They were everywhere. 

She did not sense anyone nearby.

Holding the material delicately in her hands, her fingers worked over the intricate stitches, sliding over the velvety surface.

She did not wash these items as quickly as the others.

They had touched _her_. Intimately.

Her fingers slowed as she neared the seam that stretched between the legs of the garment. A thrill fluttered through her, a secret knowledge of just where it had been.

Looking about her again she leaned ever so slightly forward to bring the bloomers closer. They smelled of _her_. Heady and warm.

Warm. She was warm.

The laundry would keep, if she only shifted her own skirt just so, if she allowed her fingers to slip, hidden away into the material, she could find her own seam.

* * *

“Hilda, I haven’t a clean pair of underthings. Perhaps you might take care of these for me.” Zelda shoved a basket into Hilda’s arms as she moved into the mortuary kitchen.

“Bu-but I...”

Zelda slid into her spot at the kitchen table and picked up the latest Egyptian newspaper, shaking it out. “I know how much you enjoy that little task. I thought I’d save it for you.”

Hilda’s cheeks went bright red. Oh, curse that insufferable woman.

She knew just what she was doing.

Hilda hated doing the laundry.


	25. War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for Brian+Runyon who requested something written based upon car bomb and blind (sorry I couldn't fit in the artificial leg...though maybe accidentally I did surreptitiously...we'll say it's an implication ;).) 
> 
> And yes, you too can request something based upon a word - or if there's a part of this story you'd like to know more about - a time in their lives - you can always ask! :)

**War**

The last thing she saw was the greenish blue flame that shot up from the Daimler-Benz. As if there had been magic in the bomb.

Shrapnel from the explosion pierced her skin, the light from the vehicle’s combustion ephemeral and blinding. Her face hit the ground, hard. Her knee had bent at an odd angle, twisted, in pain.

Pain everywhere. Her fur ruined as it lay tangled in her arms, the softness of the hide a direct contrast to the sharpness of steal and metal now sticking in her body.

And she blinked, trying to regain her vision, but she only saw blackness.

No, it was only temporary, wasn’t it? She was facing the dirty street. She should be able to see it.

But she could not.

Strong arms scooped her up off the pavement. “Madame Seymour, Madame! Are you alright?” It was Heinz.

She felt her body pulled upwards but could not see the city around them nor the sky above. She could not see Heinz’s face as he carried her - his body limping so that she knew he had been injured as well.

But it was all blackness. A panic rose within her.

“I need...you must take me...there’s somewhere I need to go.”

* * *

They tore through the countryside at a rapid pace, only caught by the occasional check point. She groaned in pain as her body was knocked about in the backseat.

Heinz lighted cigarettes and passed them back to her as if it might ease the discomfort. She was grateful that he did not protest, nor ask why they couldn’t have just gone to the infirmary.

The journey felt like it took ages, but from sense Zelda could tell that dawn had not yet broken when they finally reached the outskirts of the little French countryside village. It was quiet and still once the deafening roar of the engine was cut. She could hear the chirping of insects, the sound of grass blowing ever so slightly in the twilight breeze.

Heinz lifted her carefully from the backseat. She heard the opening and closing of the front door, uncertain footsteps on the gravel road.

“Hello Ma’am. Madame Seymour has requested she be brought here. There was an explosion.”

Zelda heard the slight gasp emitted forth from Hilda’s lips upon seeing her in this state.

“Dear me, please. Bring her inside.” Hilda’s sweet voice - oh, if only she could see her face again! It had been so long, too long.

She could feel herself draped gently atop a couch and then Heinz’s lips grazed her cheek. “Please forgive me, but I must return to Paris at once.”

She promised to write, assured him she would recover well here in her cousin’s care.

It was not until the car engine fired up and faded off into the distance that she again felt Hilda near to her. She was crying, of this Zelda could tell.

“What were you thinking? Bringing _him _here? You’re so careless, so inconsiderate, so selfish, so - so stupid, how could you?” Her voice broke, her hands already at work removing the bits and pieces of wreckage from Zelda’s body.

“Hilda.” Zelda reached for her blindly. “Hilda, I can’t see.” And there were tears in her own eyes.

“You bloody idiot.” Hilda cursed and Zelda felt the pain ease, the sharp pricks slowly undone, the twist in her leg righted, and then Hilda’s hands covering her eyes, the chant whispered angrily, uncertainly, tearfully under her breath.

The pressure was removed and Zelda blinked.

First light, then the outline of Hilda, then Hilda.

“Oh, Zelda. Zelda.” Hilda was reaching for her, peppering her cut and bruised face with kisses. “What has this bloody mortal’s war done to you?”

And their lips met and they were inseparable until dawn broke.

Zelda never more grateful to see the sun. 


	26. “This is more than that.”

**“This is more than that.” **

Zelda looked ravishing in the moonlight, in nothing more than her black nightgown, her golden curls swept over one shoulder as she wielded the knife to prick at the palm of her hand. One exacting slice and a red line formed.

Hilda watched as the blood seeped from the cut, watched as Zelda’s brow barely furrowed at the sudden marring of her perfect milky-white skin.

She dropped the knife and looked into Hilda’s eyes. Hilda caught a glint of a smile resting in dark orbs as Zelda’s fingers trailed through her blood. The substance was sticky and warm when Zelda lifted her hand towards Hilda’s face, smeared it across her forehead.

Hilda bowed and took Zelda’s hand in her own, placing her palm to Zelda’s. There was a warmth, a breaking apart and their hands parted so that Zelda’s hand was milky-white and perfect again. But a cut formed on Hilda’s palm.

The blood ran warm from her hand. She placed two fingers to the substance, coating them in the crimson liquid and then looked at Zelda who was watching her attentively, reverently. She sat up on her knees and lifted her hand to Zelda’s forehead, anointing her in the same way.

And Zelda grasped her hand before she could take it away, placed the bloodied fingers between her lips and suckled them. Hilda was lost in her unholy motions, most certain that their meager Lupercalia celebrations might omit any possibility of keeping abstinent. Zelda was far too rousing for that.

“Zelds.” Hilda whispered bashfully.

Zelda smiled fiendishly as she took Hilda’s bloodied, cut hand and healed it before turning to reach for the glass jug. The milk was warm and wet as Zelda washed her blood away from Hilda’s forehead; Hilda repeated the ritual with Zelda.

And then Zelda’s finger curled in the strap of Hilda’s nightgown, curling it down her shoulder. Her breast was exposed to the cool night breeze as the material slid from her body. Zelda’s impatient, wanton hand glided over the pert nipple in awe.

Hilda inhaled. “We won’t...won’t last all night if you...”

Zelda smiled wickedly. “We’re not playing by their rules anymore.”

Their lips met, foreheads touching as Hilda slid Zelda’s nightgown from her shoulders. Their bodies were warm in the crisp February night air. Hidden away from the world. Weary but not broken, together but separate.

“This is more than that.” Zelda whispered.

And Hilda knew.

They laid down on the red blanket, staring into the other’s eyes, bodies close for warmth, Zelda’s center a furnace of desire.

“No matter what.” Zelda curled her fingers into Hilda’s long, blonde tresses, twirling them around her fingers. “Forever.”

Hilda knew.

“F- for-forever.” She repeated and was rewarded with a kiss and the fevered love of Zelda Spellman.

Forever.


	27. The way you hold your knife

**The way you hold your knife**

Hilda liked to observe Zelda, especially in moments when she didn’t think she was being watched.

It was in those rare moments that Zelda was her most vulnerable, most authentic self.

When Zelda would bite her lips with worry while pouring over the ledger books - deciphering how they might make ends meet that month. It was an obsession of hers, this careful consideration of their finances. And Hilda should feel concerned about the money but she thought only of biting Zelda’s rosy-red lips too.

When Zelda would smoke mindlessly draped over a divan with some new, racy novel clasped in her hands - the way her puffing would slow or hasten based upon the plot unfolding on the page. (Hilda would always take note of those specific pages that made Zelda’s fair skin flush and she would read them very carefully, relishing the prose.)

The orgasmic pleasure Zelda took in washing her hair. And this bi-monthly indulgence made Hilda almost wonder if it brought more enjoyment than sexual pleasures. For Hilda would watch, hidden away, as Zelda relished in the water, the cleansing, scrubbing motions of lathering her head, rubbing and massaging. Then the way she would sit before her vanity with her freshly washed mane, brushing the soft ginger strands straight - so very different, so much freer than the curls she wore atop her head. And it felt naughty to see her undone like this.

The times when Zelda was far away in a world of her own, staring out the window at the Parisian landscape beneath them. Hilda wanted, desperately, to know what it was she thought of. There would be a line of worry on her brow and then a distant, lost gaze.

Watching Zelda make a pot of tea was a lesson in utility and grace. It astounded her how Zelda avoided the kitchen at all costs, but Hilda was convinced Zelda knew her way around one far better than she. Zelda was exacting in her water boiling, in the moment she added the tea, and then the exact moment when she removed the leaves, which left the most crisp, perfect cup. And she would hand one to Hilda as if it had all been nothing.

The times that she overindulged with one of the men and came home stumbling and rosy faced. How she was so unlike herself then, how she clung to Hilda and spoke words she would never dare say with a tighter tongue. She was uninhibited, free. Hilda couldn’t say she liked this Zelda more but sometimes it was nice to have her in this state.

Watching Zelda make love to a man was its own sort of masterclass and exquisite torture for Hilda.

At first Hilda had tried to separate herself from what it was Zelda did with her generous patrons. But there was a curiosity - so she took to watching. Peering out from the curtain, making sure to stay as hidden as possible. Not that Zelda had asked her not to look, but nor had she told her to look...

Zelds was never fully unclothed for these men. These men who thought they might take her as just another woman - yet, she made them revere her as more. There was a strict command she had about her body, a way in which she made her conquests submit to her while also deluding them into believing they got everything they wanted and more.

She knew just how to handle them, how to work them up and take them inside of her and make them feel as special as they wanted to.

It was almost as if she were doing it for Hilda’s viewing pleasure alone, as if she knew Hilda were hidden behind the lace in the corner - rocking against her own hand.

And the day that Zelda’s eyes met Hilda’s across the room while she was straddled atop some strapping young baron, Hilda realized it had been.

It was all for her. And would always be.


	28. Deserts

**Deserts**

“I really feel, Hildegard, that you’ve been slacking in your duties.”

“Uh-o-o-uh.” Hilda covered her eyes and then uncovered them and then felt a fierce blush overtake her and then closed her eyes again. “Z-Zelda.” And then her eyes were open again because Zelda was prettier than a picture.

Perched atop the bed in her peach silk nightgown, knees lifted, center very much exposed, her hand buried deep in her slick, silvery-red curls. Oh, Satan in hell. She was doing it so blatantly, so obviously. She had wanted to be found out.

And then Hilda’s cheeks colored an even deeper shade of red because her words sunk in. Had it been so very long? How had she not worshiped her more? Of course there had been Ambrose and Sabrina and all the duties that entailed, the mortuary, life...but had she really let Zelda down so terribly?

“Zelds,” Hilda breathed, stepped forward.

“Uh-uh.” Zelda exhaled, shook her head.

Hilda stopped in her tracks, watched as Zelda’s fingers slid from herself to rub circles over her favorite little place. She half moaned, kept her eyes on Hilda.

She was working herself up, had clearly been at it since Zelda had tucked Sabrina in, tidied the living room, cleaned up from dinner, putting everything neatly away. But she could tell from the flush and smell of Zelda that there had been several trips over the edge.

Zelda had very much wanted to be found out.

Was this punishment?

Was she not allowed to touch? To taste?

Was she only meant to watch?

Hilda could never guess the rules to Zelda’s games.

Zelda’s toes flexed deliciously, her eyes sliding closed in concentration, head rolling back.

Oh, Hilda wanted to bite her neck.

She was so close.

“Now Hilda.” Zelda gasped, voice throaty and low and dripping with desire, and Hilda climbed over the chest that helped lift her onto the foot of the bed and then buried her face between Zelda’s legs, licking her sodden sweetness, replacing Zelda’s hands with her mouth, Zelda’s sticky fingers tangling in Hilda’s hair, pushing her closer.

Zelda was painfully sensitive. It took only a bit more encouragement, the little swirl of her tongue, a curled finger between wanton folds and then Zelda’s hips shot to the sky and she let out a strangled sigh of release.

She fell back atop the bed, beads of sweat on her forehead, cheeks pleasantly flushed, pushing at Hilda to move away from her.

Hilda sat on her knees, watching as Zelda twisted for her cigarettes. “You’ve really been remiss, my dear. I’m very disappointed in you.” Zelda spoke – breathing returning to normal - as she lighted the cigarette in the holder and inhaled decadently.

“Wh-what...but Zelda it hasn’t...” Hadn’t they tumbled around only a few nights ago? Yes, she remembered it distinctly. Zelda had been in a foul mood and had tried to come after her with a knife but she’d deflected and they’d ended up in some strange tête-a-tête in the living room. Thankfully Sabrina had been asleep and Ambrose otherwise occupied.

“My dear, I think your memory is slipping.” Zelda’s legs closed pleasantly together, stretched out along the silky surface of her bed.

“B-but...what have....”

“Sabrina’s class will be very disappointed.”

“Sabrin- what does that have to do...”

Zelda lifted the note from the bedside table.

Oh.

Oh, dear. How could she have forgotten?

“They’ll be very disappointed if they don’t have Hilda’s famous brownies.” A slight hint of a smile formed on Zelda’s lip.

“Oh, Zelda Fiona Spellman.” Hilda slapped her shin, made her flinch.

And Zelda was laughing deeply, heartily, leaning forward to reach for Hilda who fought her off to stand. If she didn’t start the brownies now she’d be up until the witching hour.

But Zelda caught her in a fierce hug, pressed her lips to her neck, whispered in her ear. “And just think, when your gooey, delicate masterpieces are complete, I know just what we can do with the leftovers.”

And Hilda did not have to be reminded twice.


	29. Wartime Comfort

**Wartime Comfort**

Celine was not Zelda.

But that was neither here nor there.

Hilda was not Victor.

Celine had soft, dark hair. She had brilliant blue eyes.

That was what had caught Hilda’s attention at first. The brilliance of those eyes, the light they held within them, the small hope they carried amidst the wreckage of the war.

Hilda had been drawn to that.

She had not known Celine before the war. She had seen her at the cottage down the road in passing - when Zelda had driven the old Bugatti by just a tad too fast, her leopard print scarf flapping in the wind and cigarette stuck between blood-red lips. Hilda remembered that day blissfully, remembered having seen Celine out front pregnant and tending her garden as Zelda had zipped them by.

She’d waved.

Hilda had waved back.

The memory was so vibrant, colorful. Those eyes so striking set against her dark head of hair. Hilda remembered that.

It was not until that cold day in the supermarket, when a hand had fallen over Hilda’s as she reached for the last of the potatoes. The world was so dark and gray.

Hilda had looked up apologetically and had found those brilliant blue eyes staring at her, reminding her of that colorful day which seemed a lifetime ago.

“Please, take it.” For Hilda knew that Celine had not only a newborn but three other children to feed.

She’d gone home with her, made sparse, wartime cookies for the children, delighted in the company, of being surrounded again by others, and not so alone. Celine had begged her to stay for dinner, but she had her wartime duties to tend to.

Though their visits became something of a regularity over the long, dark days.

Celine asked her, one evening, to stay until the children were asleep. Hilda had obeyed - her secret charges cared for already and the thought of returning to the all too quiet cottage alone was not a welcoming thought.

They’d taken to the sofa in the sitting room with mugs of tea. Warm, comfortable. They spoke of everything and nothing. Celine spoke of missing Victor. Spoke of the things she could not tell her children. The things she missed, the things she longed for.

Hilda listened, knew exactly of what Celine was saying but could not say she knew.

Celine’s eyes penetrated her – for Celine understood. A hand timidly placed over Hilda’s. Hilda, flustered, watched as their fingers entwined, felt her heart beating a little faster, feeling a little more alive than she had been only a moment before.

What was this?

It was wrong, or was it right? It was wartime. It was not Zelda sanctioned, but perhaps she needn’t be so terribly concerned whether or not Zelda sanctioned things. Hilda was always so willing to be told what to do.

Celine turned Hilda’s cheek, brought her uncertain eyes to look into her crystalline blues. And Hilda knew she knew. Knew what they both knew to be true.

“I can’t be her, but I’d like to be for now.”

That they kissed so decadently and deliciously was neither here nor there. That Hilda awoke in Celine’s embrace was merely a wartime comfort.

Hilda was not Victor; Celine was not Zelda.

But Celine and Hilda were for then.


	30. The Haunted Pumpkin Patch

**The Haunted Pumpkin Patch**

The crisp fall air was a Satan send after all the blasted heat of the summer.

That Zelda could wear her favorite black coat with the leopard collar again brought her a great giddiness that she kept coldly concealed so that perhaps only Hilda might ascertain and catch the joy in which it brought her. To anyone else, staring at the buttoned-up woman standing indifferently, austerely amongst the pumpkins, she looked quite possibly miserable.

“Auntie Zee! Auntie Zee! They have apple cider.” Sabrina came bounding towards her, lithe and limber on her little legs.

“Be careful, Sabrina. You’ll spill it all over and burn yourself.” Zelda startled, caught Sabrina before she could tumble over a pumpkin vine. “Be careful!” Zelda jumped back, not taking the chance that the cup in Sabrina’s hand wouldn’t upset and run all over her beloved coat.

Sabrina came to a standstill, clasping the mug in her hands reverently. She was impossibly adorable looking up at Zelda in awe and fear.

“Now drink it carefully.” Zelda instructed.

Sabrina did as she was told, her big, big eyes glancing up at her tall, tall aunt.

Hilda appeared at her side with her own apple cider and a half-eaten pumpkin donut. “Sabrina wanted to save this for you.” Hilda held up the donut.

“That was very thoughtful of you.” Zelda thanked the girl, took one bite of the sugary convection and then lit a cigarette. “Have you seen a pumpkin that you like?” She stared around boredly.

Sabrina shook her head.

“Now, love, choosing a pumpkin is a very special task. You have to find one that speaks to you.” Hilda enchanted the child with her made-up wiles.

Sabrina glanced around them cautiously at all the pumpkins, her eyes growing bigger at the great task before her. “Can you hold this?” She held up her cup to Zelda and then bounded off into the pumpkin patch.

“You make it sound like it’s some holy sacrament to find a pumpkin, Hilda. It’s some ridiculous mortal invention. This whole outlandish idea of Halloween.”

Hilda laughed, patted Zelda’s hand. “For having so many reservations about today, I think you’re quite enjoying it.”

“Don’t tell me what I enjoy, Hildegard.” Zelda puffed indignantly at her cigarette, inhaled the fall time scent of the earth around them. “It is a rather nice day, isn’t it?”

“Just the weather you love best.” Hilda shivered in the chilly breeze.

Zelda half-smiled, then thought she caught a glimpse of something shifting through the apple trees.

The spirit realm was thinly veiled now as the harvest moon approached.

The apparition appeared and disappeared.

“Sabrina.” Zelda gasped, dropped the apple cider at her feet and turned to run in the direction the girl had gone.

Hilda was panting along behind her, spooked by Zelda’s sudden fear and natural instincts towards danger.

But a clearing appeared and in it was Sabrina standing safe and docile and reverent before the largest pumpkin Zelda had ever seen.

The sisters came to stand behind the girl, Hilda eyeing Zelda curiously, wondering what it was that had frightened her so.

“I want this one.” Sabrina turned to face her aunts.

“Well, it’s awfully large. I’m not sure it will fit in the car.”

“But Auntie Hilda said I could pick whichever one I wanted.” Sabrina stamped her foot.

“Sabrina, that’s no way to behave when you don’t get your way.” Zelda stamped her foot down on the ground. Both Sabrina and Hilda noticed.

“Zelda, love, we can manage with it.” Hilda lightly brushed her arm.

There was a flash of something familiar yet terribly chilling that brought Zelda’s attention away from her niece. A warning inside of her said to leave the pumpkin patch soon.

“Fine, fine. We’ll have a farm hand manage it to the car.” She conceded and Sabrina wrapped her arms tightly about her waist and she felt herself reflexively hugging the child to her stomach.

As they watched the helper load the pumpkin into the trunk Hilda leaned over to Zelda - who was still glancing off into the distance.

“What is it, Zelds?” Hilda could sense that something was amiss.

“It’s only...it seemed I saw...” Zelda’s brow furrowed. “It was ridiculous. Just a passing sensation, nothing more.”

Hilda worried her lip, but seemed to trust Zelda in her dismissal of the threat.

That night they carved the largest pumpkin they had ever seen - a little hidden-from-Sabrina-magic helped. And as they stood admiring their handiwork from the driveway, Zelda’s eyes were drawn to the woods.

Oh, it was ridiculous for a witch to be afraid.

But she slept wrapped protectively around Sabrina all night just the same.

**Author's Note:**

> I've come to the dark side. A friend and I have been working out an alternative sort of history for our lovely ladies. If you would like me to explore some point in time for them, please let me know and I will see what I can do. :) I hope you enjoy! This is an on-going project.


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